Bradford Cox

Welcome to 5-10-15-20, a new feature in Pitchfork News. In 5-10-15-20, we talk to artists about the music they loved at five-year interval points in their lives. Maybe we'll get a detailed roadmap of how their tastes and passions helped make them who they are. Maybe we'll just learn that they really liked hearing the "DuckTales" theme song over and over when they were kids. Either way, it'll be fun.

I wasn't an exceptionally musical kid. At that age, I was probably more interested in cars or drawing. If you asked my mom, I'm sure it was C+C Music Factory or whatever my sister was listening to. I remember MTV. That was the MTV age right there. I liked the idea of music in general, whether it was Robert Palmer or the Cure, whatever video was showing. My favorite song was probably a "Sesame Street" song or something. I don't remember.

That was my big obsession. I like everything that I've heard that he's done, but I'm not a follower of Danny Elfman. It was more about just that music and that story. I became really interested in the way melodies can be so heartbreaking or nostalgic or melancholy. I didn't know what that word meant when I was 10 years old. It was just, like, indefinable, something that didn't have a word at that age. It was just a feeling. It was cool.

I bought that cassette at least twice because one got all ratty. I was really obsessed with that movie. I really identified with it. At that age, I was a lot different than I was later. At that age, I had no friends. I was a very, very lonely kid. I really related to that character. People made fun of me a lot at that age because that's when I first started looking awkward. When I was kid, five years old, I looked like every other kid. I was actually almost fat. At that age, I was getting awkward, and I identified with this freak with scissors. The music was so emotionally affecting.

I'd already smoked pot. Maybe I had done mushrooms and stuff. I was getting into the juvenile delinquent area of my life. I was attracted to the cover, so I shoplifted it from this tape store where this old man was a bitch; he was always yelling at us. It was a used promo, that's why I didn't feel bad stealing it. Remember when tapes used to have the golden embossed "for promotion only"? It was one of those. It's not like the band would have made any money off of it anyway. I thought it looked retro or whatever.

I was totally amazed by that music. I wish I was more intelligent or well-spoken about all this stuff. I wish there was some narrative that made sense. The only thing that I can explain about why I like that music and why it fits the context of this age thing is that when I was younger, five years old, I just wanted music that was emotionally manipulative, that I could understand clearly because I was a child. When I was 15 and a little bit stoned, I became interested in music that was more monotonous or hypnotic because I started understanding that element of music. If you've never been a stoned teenager, you probably will never like certain types of music.

I dropped out of high school. I got my GED. This was the period when I was obsessed with noise and 20th century composers, just obscure shit, half of which I don't really remember. My whole family life collapsed at the end of high school because I was like a complete escapist, a budding homosexual in a small conservative town. It was a bizarre time. My parents got a very nasty divorce, and basically they both kind of went off to live with new partners, so I was left to live in my childhood home alone. I literally lived in this large suburban house by myself. It's a real druggy period. At that point, I wasn't even interested in pop. I was only interested in this certain sort of suburban psychedelic pastoral thing. It was escapism. I didn't want as much emotional manipulation. It's kind of the opposite of Edward Scissorhands. I was searching for this minimalist mindset where you could be calm and tranced out.

This still one of my top five favorite albums of all time. Nobody really talks about it ever; it's just shameful. That was the band of Ian Williams from Battles after he left Don Caballero. That album might seriously be my favorite record of all time. It was literally the soundtrack for that time for me.

The first time I heard it, I took ecstasy in my bedroom alone because there was nobody to hang out with. I bought that record based on packaging. It came in this clear vinyl envelope. It didn't have an actual cover. It was supposed to be this free jazz/pop/weird drone type record. I don't understand it in the context of what most of its core audience understands it as, which is math rock. I don't think of that record any differently than, like, a John Lennon record. It's just a spacey pop record, and it happens to be really fragmented. I don't listen to it as high art or something. I've never drawn lines of value between pop music and experimental music. It depends on your mood, you know? Music is just a personal convoluted thing. Only I understand why that Storm & Stress record is the best record of all time because I know what it sounds like on ecstasy in your bedroom alone at 20 years old.

Every week, I'm obsessed with something new. There's no rules or boundaries. When you're five years old, your access to music is extremely limited. When you're 10 years old, it's still limited. When I was 10 years old, there was no file-sharing. I'm sure there are 10-year-olds now downloading Kanye West and shit. Moving forward to 25, now I have everything available to me. I can listen to anything I want anytime, ever, which is a pretty weird position. I'll just say Animal Collective by default. In a lot of ways, they kind of summarize all these other things anyway.

When I was five, all I was interested in was emotional manipulation, pop music that had a quick effect. As I got older, I was into more hypnotic or exploratory music. Animal Collective also encompass that. They probably summarize my entire musical upbringing into a nice resolved end. I'd love to say that my own music did that, but I'm still learning. I'm not as a good at throwing the whole bag of ingredients into the pot at once. I always kind of stick to one style of music per one album or release. God, another interview in which I talk about Animal Collective.